Swiss CDMO Siegfried has inaugurated its new global R&D centre for drug substances at its site in Evionnaz. The 4,500 m2 centre houses chemical and analytical facilities, laboratories and advanced technologies including flow chemistry, distillation and process analytics, plus office space. There are workspaces for over 100 and 40 new jobs have been created.
Siegfried has broke ground for its new global R&D centre for drug substances at its site in Evionnaz, Switzerland. The company is investing up to €23 million at the facility, which will begin operations in 2024 and host about 100 scientists, working alongside another R&D centre at the main site in Zofingen. The centre will host advanced chemical and analytical facilities and laboratories, offering chemical process R&D and analytical development services for the entire drug substances network, Siegfried said.
In order to “maximise customer centricity and market focus” and continue an ongoing transition into “a system solutions partner for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries”, Evonik has divided its Health Care business into three distinct units.
Drug Substance encompasses the company’s CDMO services for active APIs, including HPAPIs, and intermediates plus generics. It is headed by Dr Stefan Randl, an industry veteran of 15 years who has been leading projects in mRNA and gene therapies since 2020.
Quotient Sciences, a UK-based firm that describes itself as a “drug development and manufacturing accelerator”, has integrated drug substance into its flagship Translational Pharmaceutics platform, uniting it with drug product and clinical testing activities within one organisation under a single project manager. This follows a year after the acquisition of the former Arcinova site at Alnwick.
Quotient Sciences is to invest £6.3 million to expand drug substance manufacturing at the site in Alnwick, UK, which it acquired along with Arcinova in February. This will also create 80 new jobs over the next three years and boost its capacity to develop complex medicines tenfold.
Small molecule CDMO Cambrex is to spend $3.6 million to increase flexible drug substance manufacturing capacity by 6 m3 (25%) at Karlskoga, Sweden, in response to growing demand for commercial-scale API manufacturing. Engineering work has already commenced and should be completed by November.
